


the pressure to deliver

by The_Crab_Overlord



Series: Server Skyrates [1]
Category: Original Work, Server Skyrates
Genre: Crab double uploading again., It probably won't end up that way., Yeah it starts out fluffy.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Crab_Overlord/pseuds/The_Crab_Overlord
Summary: Saph looked terrified, her voice quieting to something akin to a whisper. “We can’t stop an army, Lesia.”Lesia matched her tone, “I know, Saph, I know.”
Series: Server Skyrates [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026126
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Skyrates from Knowhere





	1. the someone else in the room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts), [Spaghettoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettoi/gifts), [sapphicist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicist/gifts).



> More skyrates. Enough said. Enjoy!

There are two people who should never have had to exist.

These same two people cannot exist without the other. 

There are two people who should still be kids. One of them becomes a father through no fault, maybe even no effort of his own. The other is a stranger, almost. She rejects the idea of daughterhood, of sisterhood, and attempts to forge a path in a world where family, either good or bad, is inevitable. 

Whether good or bad. 

Lesia Cormander wakes up in the morning to the first real family she ever knew. Pattrick was family, yes, but in a strange way. He had brothers and sisters and a mother. Lesia didn’t have that. She had Roman Sartorious, a commander. Not a father in any way, shape, or form. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard she tried, Roman was no excuse for a father.

Lesia wakes up in the morning next to Ghet. It was a strange name, she knew, but everyone here was strange. They had shared the bunk bed for a while now, at least a month or so. Had she really been here three months? She swung her legs down from the top bunk, hopping to the ground from halfway down the ladder. She rested two or three trace fingers on Ghet’s cheek as he slept on the bottom bunk. It was a light, fleeting touch, almost as if anything she did would hurt him. She thought to herself, knowing that it was a possibility for it to happen as she wrapped a cardigan (a cardigan, she wears those now) around herself, keeping out the chill of the thin air.

She exited her quarters and made her way down to the galley, nodding at Nova as they washed dishes. Lesia herself had even picked up a few chore shifts, even though her real duties were to protect the ship.  
The ship was strangely quiet. After Las Vegas, everyone was still either tired, angry, or both.  
“You’re not wearing any shoes.” The voice that came from behind Lesia was tentative, male, deep.

Havok.

Lesia looked down at the floor, where sock-clad shoes met cold linoleum. “Better to er- sneak around with. Don’t want to wake anyone up, you know,” came Lesia’s clipped response. Havok wore a look of astonishment on his face.

“I just- I’ve never seen you in anything but boots before. It makes you a little less...scary, I guess.” Lesia raised an eyebrow to him. “Only a little, Lesia. Only a little.” Lesia smiled. Havok, it being his turn to raise an eyebrow, smiled back. They walked the rest of the way to the table to eat a rather sparse breakfast of oatmeal. 

At least it was warm. 

Not everything is. 

Ghet ends up joining them later on for breakfast, and it’s almost a normal day. She spends most of the day with Havok and Saph again, discussing how not to let Las Vegas happen again, and avoiding Fizz, who’s still of the opinion that Lesia could have avoided the situation entirely. She remembered those moments after she shut the door of the medbay, Havok and Ghet inside, attending to Khio.

“Khio was right,” Lesia took her hand away from the metal handle of the door. “You could have done your space magic thing and- and just magiced away from the shopkeep, but no, no, ‘that’s not how it works,’ or some other load of bull.” Lesia was taken aback. Nobody on the ship had spoken to her like this before, nobody had even dared to look at her with the look Fizz had in her eyes, and Lesia was certainly not enjoying it. 

“Fizz, I know you’re upset but-”

“No! No, Lesia, there are no ‘buts.’ It’s your job to protect us. I’ve seen what you can do, we’ve all seen it, and the least you could have done was blast their defenses or- whatever it is that you do, but no, but no! You were down belowdecks, doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who.”

As Lesia tried to croak out some semblance of an apology, Fizz turned on her heel with a military-like precision and left, leaving the silence of an empty corridor, only muffled by Ghet’s quiet sobs.


	2. headlights on the river styx

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tick, tock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is inspired by the vibes of "Where Is My Mind" by Pixies and "Meltdown" by Lorde. There's lowkey a 71-song playlist for this whole AU and it's kind of a vibe. Also, two chapters in two days because it's break.

“Lesia? Er- Les-” Ghet’s voice shook her out of her memories, out of the night of Las Vegas. She turned to see the round-faced boy standing behind her. 

“Ghet! Good morning. You’re ah- up early.” She gave him a tight-lipped smile. Ghet hadn’t been known for his early mornings ever since the two started sharing a platonic bunk bed.

“Lesia? You were like, spaced out or somethin.’” Concern laced his southern drawl, native to the slums of Texas. 

“Me? Oh, just thinking.” He raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t think, Cormander, you plan.” She laughed, and the shock of it burst through Ghet as a chuckle. 

“I do think, Ghet. Wouldn’t have made it this far if I didn’t.” He reached out a tentative hand to squeeze her shoulder, almost as if it were a truce in peacetime. 

Lesia really didn’t want to attend another defense session, but here she was. She allowed Fizz and Havok and Saph to bicker in front of her. It was quite funny to her, really, to just watch the whims of humanity unfold themselves in the form of words. Everyone wants what they want, and they aren’t keen to just simply give that up, you see. 

“We have to have some form of a reliable food source, Havok. I refuse to do anything like that again,” came Fizz’s pelting words.

“None of us can garden, Fizz. It’s a calming activity for what- eight people who barely have the time to do their regular chores, and Nova won’t even let us into theirs. I mean, they’re contributing, even if it’s not much right now, but the hunters-”

“It’s always the hunters with you, isn’t it, Havok.”

“It’s almost like they’re trying to kill us, Fizz.” Saph interjected sarcastically. Fizz looked a little taken aback at this, as her mouth opened and closed like a fish. Lesia stood up.

“Ladies, ladies. We can’t change what happened. Life must go on. But, we can fix the future. We need a better plan of attack. We have to use people to their strengths in ways that won’t even let us skim the surface of trouble.” Fizz nodded. Havok stared in silent thought. He sighed aloud.

“Lesia, Fizz, Saph. Clearly this is a...heated debate. You all have uh- points, sure, but uh-” he scratched the back of his head nervously. 

“But what, Havok.” Fizz’s voice clanged like an off-key cymbal hit by a player who was in too much over their heads, and was too used to playing the drums. “But. What.”

“Fizz, I am the captain of this ship. I am responsible for the life and well-being of everyone here, and if that means putting them in danger sometimes, then that’s what we’re going to have to do. In Las Vegas, we did what we had to do. We don’t have the manpower, heck, the power in general to keep this ship off the ground as it is. This, Fizz, is our reality. This isn’t-” he waved his hand towards a window, “wherever you’re from anymore.” Fizz stormed out of the room, Saph jogging after her. Lesia gave Havok half a salute and left the room.

Havok pursed his lips at the salute. The two of them never talked about it, but he knew he knew her from somewhere. No, not one of his subordinates, no, someone more...important. More obvious. 

More dangerous. 

Lesia knew exactly who Havok was. Heck, Havok wasn’t even his real name, for Void’s sake. He was from the north, some fisher’s son. They had demanded his enlistment. Havok was 18 then, Lesia was 14, maybe. They both knew the art of battle, the art of survival. 

But nobody else knew that they knew this. The Programme was a hushed legend, children of malice, of danger. 

Children like her. 

Lesia had been heading towards her quarters once again as Saph came running down the hall towards her. “Hunters,” she huffed, “looks like a bunch of ‘em, too.” Saph’s voice drawled through the air, hot against the coolness of the late afternoon. Lesia nodded, silently, and began walking quickly toward her quarters. Moments later, she heard the blaring of sirens come after her. She looked out the window of her room as she prepared for battle and her eyes widened. She backed up a few steps, before turning on the heel to run down the halls. 

She found Havok on the bridge, as he watched Saph attempt to land the ship. 

“They’re forcing us to land;” Saph grunted through gritted teeth, “they have drones.”

“Yeah, because that’s not- it’s not just hunters. The military is down there, Havok.”

“What do you mean, Lesia?”

“You know exactly what I mean, soldie- Havok.” Lesia’s eyes leveled with the taller man, her subordinative captain of this vessel they had doomed to hell. 

“They’re here for you and me, Havok. The game’s up.”


	3. so black, it shines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saph scratched the back of her neck. “I’m not going to like this plan, am I?”
> 
> Lesia smiled and shook her head. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Highly recommend listening to "Carry Me Out" by Mitski as you read the end. The melodic pattern goes along well.

“C’mon, c’mon.” Saph was pulling them away from the window, urging them into the bridge, “we’ve gotta figure out what to do here.” Havok was silent, unhelpful. He was scared. Lesia knew this, but it was still rather annoying to see. 

“It’s not just hunters, Saph. They’re with the military. It’s- ah- a secret branch. Black book operations against humans. Taking down whole cities in campaigns against ‘em. They’re headquartered out of Chicago.” Khio loudly interrupted.

“Lesia, aren’t you uh, from Chicago?” Lesia rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“Yes, Khio, I am. Is there a problem with that?” Her tone read to him and the others that there should not be a problem with the fact. Khio shook his head to show that concept. 

It was Saph’s turn to shake her own head. “We have to figure out what to do. Lesia, Havok, you seem to know these people. Do you have any clue what they want?”

Lesia nodded before swallowing. “Saph, they want us back, probably. You helped Havok escape. I ran away. That probably doesn’t look very good on their reports. It’s clean-up, and we’re the dirt.”

Saph looked terrified, her voice quieting to something akin to a whisper. “We can’t stop an army, Lesia.”

Lesia matched her tone, “I know, Saph, I know.” She straightened up. “That’s why we at least have to try. They don’t want any of you, they just want Havok and I. That’s the important thing to remember.” 

Saph scratched the back of her neck. “I’m not going to like this plan, am I?”  
Lesia smiled and shook her head. “No.”

Lesia was holding a gun.

See, most people would think, “ah, scary military lady, holding a gun!” and you’d be right, of course, but see, Lesia Cormander does not need that gun to arrest Havok, the man she was holding at point with aforementioned gun. To the military unit and the hunters waiting for them outside that door, Havok and Lesia were less terrifying like this than they were on the same side.

It was a prayer not to be shot on sight. 

Before Mis opened the bay doors, she put the laser gun into its holster and pulled Havok into a stiff and awkward hug. He clutched the back of her head, pushing it into his shoulder. When they separated, Lesia inhaled, exhaling a quiet apology before nodding to Mis to open the doors. She spun Havok around, before muttering those fated words.

“Havok, you are under arrest for desertion. Anything you say may and will be used against you in a military tribunal.”

She gently prodded him along with her staff, blinking in the brightness of the sunlight, noticing how much warmer the ground was rather than the sky. She hadn’t really been off the ship in a while, she’d been kept on deck during missions, or there was that one time she’d been on a sky colony, but this was the first time her feet had touched real grass in...months. 

Sort of tragic, really, when you think about it.

But anyway.

They walk down into the grass, that peaceful, unknowing grass. Grass doesn’t know what happens upon it. Grass doesn’t care. Grass only cares if it gets sunlight. 

The sun is shining. The grass is happy.

The individuals, the military squadron in front of them clearly isn’t. 

A man stands out from the pack (quite literally, he’s nearly six-and-a-half feet tall). Lesia knows exactly who it is. He’s the man she has to fool just long enough to get his guard down. “Commander Sartorious,” she begins, crossing the field with Havok, his scraggly band of travellers emerging from the ship, standing at a distance, some more used to having this many powered and angry humans surrounding them than others, “I’ve captured the deserter.”

“I see that,” he says, something in his eyes that look like pride, whether good or evil that pride may be. “But of course, it takes a deserter to know a deserter.” He looked down at Lesia with a mild disdain in his eyes. Lesia gulped.

“I didn’t desert, Commander. It had to look like I was missing for real, so that they’d trust me! I was going to contact you the next time we stopped, they’ve kept me on a pretty short leash, all things considered.”

“Well, Lesia,” Sartorious said, gesturing for someone to handcuff Havok. “you’ve ah- you’ve done good work. It’s good to know you’re still on the side of justice.” He sticks out a hand to congratulate her.

She sticks her fist in his face. 

Knowhere cheered as she raised her hands into the air mockingly, as she stood beside Havok. “You didn’t really, really think that I’d follow you after you told me you wanted to use me to destroy whole cities, whole colonies, full of innocents?”

“They’re not innocent, Lesia, they’re human! Even you, the saintly being of... whatever you are, have blood on your hands. You can’t just escape it, Lesia.” He grabbed her chin, pulling it up to look her more clearly in the face. Ghet broke forward to the front of the group. 

“Don’t touch her-” he gasped, stopping as he realized he had some unsavory humans pointing weapons at him. He raised his own hands into the air as Lesia slowly backed up towards him. 

Commander Sartorious approached him. “Who’s this...fine young fellow? One of your little friends, I presume?”

“He’s nobody, Roman, just- just leave him alone, ‘kay?”

“Lesia, darling, have you really gone so far as to begin to care about pesky, measly, nobodies?” He leaned down to whisper into her ear, “Have you forgotten all about your dearest Pattrick?”

She gasped aloud. “Roman, just shut up, shut up!” Her hands lit with energy, and it surged from her fingertips. 

“You will address me by my title Les-”

Anger surged through her eyes. “I will address you how I please! I am not- not your underling anymore.” She stuttered over her words as she realized her mistake. She had formally admitted to committing a crime now. 

Man, they were screwed now, weren’t they. 

Havok leaned over to her. “So...do we have a plan now?”

“Not really, no,” she whispered back. 

Roman Sartorious, a man who had just had the closest thing he’d ever had to a child sully his good name, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just-just arrest them. Go with Plan Delta.”

“All of them?” said someone, one of the hunters, likely.

“Yes, all of them. Aiding and abetting fugitives.”

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, don’t you- wait I-” Havok began stuttering over his words before Lesia stepped in front of him. 

“You’re absolutely not arresting all of them,”Saph said, speaking from the back.

“Yeah. Not going to happen, buddy,” said Lesia. She looked behind her as hunters slowly encircled her friends (Her friends. Those are your friends, Lesia). She did the only thing she could really think to do. These people couldn’t afford to get in a fight with her. Delta had to be some sort of a farce, some alternate plan. 

“If you let them go, Havok and I will come peacefully.”

“You’ll do what-?” Saph angrily queried.

“Shh, Saph.” Lesia held up a hand, gesturing for silence behind her. “Havok and I ‘ll- we’ll come peacefully.”

It was Ghet’s turn to speak. “You can’t, Lesia.”

Lesia watched as Ghet tried to break through the circle, but was held back. He winced as he reappeared in front of her, clutching her wrists. “You...you just, both of you!” He grabbed Havok as he spoke.

“I- Ghet...You have to be safe.”

Ghet wiped a tear from his eye, then went back to holding Lesia. “I just-”

Roman waved his hand as a group of soldiers went to arrest Havok and Lesia. Lesia felt her arms wrench behind her back, the cool of metal encircling them. “It’s- It’ll be okay, Ghet, yeah? It’ll-” one of the soldiers gave her a look as they forced her to turn around. 

The time for speaking was over.

Two soldiers were on either side of her, one holding each cuffed, delicate wrist, their other hand on each of her shoulders. Could she escape? Yes. But her friends wouldn’t, so she just had

to 

stay 

put. 

It was then that she noticed the tarp she was headed towards. She was made to kneel down on it, wondering what in the world this had to do with an arrest.

Ghet watched as his first? Some of his first friends were led away from him for the- no, this couldn’t be it, right? He’d see his buddy - his brother again, right? Saph placed a hand on his shoulder. He watched Lesia and Havok carefully as they were forced down onto their knees. He watched that man - Roman? He didn’t know, really, He really didn’t have a clue what was happening most of the time, and he certainly didn’t now.

He did, however, know that he didn’t like that- that Roman man. Khio came up beside him. “Whaddya- whatcha’ think they-re ah- doing?” He asked. 

“Really, I don’t know, but ah- er- it can’t be good.” Khio clutched his hand, Saph clutched his shoulder, and they watched. The two subjects looked uncomfortable. Havok had gone still and stoic. Lesia kept trying to look back, but she couldn’t see.

She couldn’t see. 

Nobody saw the two snipers take aim. 

The grass doesn’t know when someone dies. 

The grass only grumbles at the nusaiance of being crumpled suddenly by two bodies.

At the nusaiance of feet trampling on it as Ghet and Saph and the entirety of the Knowhere crew scramble to get to their friends, but are pushed back, and they can only watch as two limp bodies, their wrists still bound behind them, are loaded into bags. Ghet and Khio hold each other on that grassy plain. Saph stands stoically, darkly with refusal running through her.

“They’re not dead.”

It’s the only thing that keeps her sane as she watches the two of them, bodies encased in plastic, board a craft, Roman Sartorious smirking as the bay doors closed. 

“They’re not dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hangst.


	4. the barranca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bar·ran·ca  
> /bəˈräNGkə/
> 
> noun  
> a narrow, winding river gorge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suprise shawtay

And then Lesia woke up. 

She was gasping for air, a task that is very shocking to you when you thought you were going to wake up in the abyss of afterlife. Upon trying to clutch a hand to her laborring chest, she discovered that she was handcuffed to this...hospital bed? It looked like a hospital bed, but less comforting (as comforting as a hospital bed could be). 

Lesia Cormander is seventeen when she is pronounced dead.

A costly mistake on the part of the Programme, really.

Lesia Cormander is merely a memory in the minds of a forsaken military branch that is all too young, all too brave.

She lies in the bed, struggling, when the shape of a man that she now barely knows stands in the doorway. 

“Roman?” The man moved closer, resting a hand on the edge of the bed, face coming into view out of the shadows. 

“You always were a fighter, kid. It’s time to stop now,” he rumbles, a thinly veiled threat escaping. He steps closer, running a knuckle along her cheek. He unclasps the handcuffs from the bed, cuffing her wrists together. She doesn’t know where she is, this isn’t Chicago, she was nearly certain of that. 

“Where are we?” she said, as two guards came to take her by the arms. 

“Nowhere important, at least. You should get used to it though. You’ve been reassigned,” he looked back at her with a smirk. She hadn’t been reassigned, she’d been arrested, she didn’t even know if her friends knew that she was alive, for goodness’ sake. She was pulled to her feet on shaking legs, almost dropping to the ground, but the rigid grasp of the guards was enough to keep her from falling. 

“Where’s-”

“Havok? He woke up before you did. You’re going to be neighbors, in fact.” 

She did not like where this was going.

She grunted as she pulled against the guards, and just as elbow was about to make contact with nose, something cold pressed against her spine, and she yelped, feeling the energy drain out of her almost instantaneously. She turns around to see what the object was. 

It was an ice cube held in a pair of tongs. 

She looks back to Roman, who was leading the way. Why was this happening, she didn’t know, she didn’t know, she-

“You are weak to the cold,” he said, not turning around. 

She had spent her entire life in 70 degree caves underneath Chicago, always extremely bundled up in the winter, Roman made sure of that, but she never knew why. 

“The cold stops the chaos energy from getting to you. It stops your powers almost completely.”

“How do you-”

“I know everything about you, Lesia. I raised you, I fed you, I housed you, I trained you to be the most dangerous person in the world, and you didn’t think I’d make a failsafe?” 

She realized why it was always so hard to warp when she was in the air.

She was pulled along by the two guards through a maze of hallways and corridors, before she saw him. He was behind a set of metal bars, facing the door. He stood up to approach her, reaching a hand through. Roman allowed her to walk towards him, and instinctively, she grabbed his hand.

“Are you-”

“I’m fine, Hank, you are-”

“Lesia, I’m not so sure about this, do you have-” and she was pulled away.

The floor of her cell was cold, colder than any floor she had felt before. There was a metal bed, a john, and a blanket. She couldn’t hear Havok anymore. Roman took the cuffs off and closed the door, still looking at her through the window. 

“Would you come back to the Programme, if given a choice?”

Her heart caught in her throat, and her gaze shifted down the hallway where she knew Havok was.

“I don’t think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short :(

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah! I'm planning on making this multi-chaptered, I'm sorry it started off so slow, I just had friendship on the brain. But, I promise that it will get more interesting from here on in.


End file.
